"I thought Gozer was a man!": Ghostbuster's controls will be familiar to all shooter fans

Every now and then, you’ll know about five minutes after you’ve slipped the video game disc into your console just how much you’re going to enjoy a game- a funky menu screen or an explosive opening gambit, perhaps. OK, you should never judge a book by its cover or a video game by its, er, title screen, but there are those moments when you just know you’re going to have a great time or not.

With Ghostbusters: The Video Game that knowledge comes during the opening FMV. After a guard investigates a noise at the tantalisingly titled ‘Gozer’ exhibit at the New York Natural History museum, a spooky, luminescent blue light explodes from the building. As the cloud of ethereal energy stretches out over Manhattan towards the Hudson River a drum beat kicks in, before a familiar synth is overplayed by the immortal words of Ray Parker junior: “If there’s something strange...”

Whether fuelled by a sense of beautiful 1980s nostalgia, or just because that theme tune is so awesome, how wide the grin spreads across your face should give you a clue to the enjoyment you’ll have for the next eight or so hours. Stating the obvious it may be, but this is a game that does exactly what it says on the box, the Ghostbusters licence intrinsically worked into a fun, action-packed –but ultimately flawed- third-person shooter. Fans will be right at home from the outset, but even the uninitiated should find a lot to like about Terminal Reality’s ghostbusting love letter.

Overseen by Ghostbusters creators Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis, and originally dubbed the official third Ghostbusters entry, the story is the familiar convoluted trans-dimensional tale, set two years after old Vigo the Carpathian baby-stealing antics in Ghostbusters II. You step into the shoes of a rookie ghostbuster, joining the original fab four as a guinea pig for Egon’s new, and incredibly dangerous, equipment.

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It’s not long before you’ve managed to smash up the Ghostbusters fire station with your proton stream and released that lovable glob of snot, Slimer into NYC. Ray and Egon tell you that he will return to the point of his original manifestation. That’s Terminal Reality’s code for “we’re going to let you tear up the Sedgwick Hotel’s ballroom in a glorious retread of the first movie, because we know that’s what you really want to do.” In fairness, they’re absolutely right.

Controlling the rookie should be familiar to anyone who’s played a third-person shooter in the last few years; taking on Gears of War’s chunky, over the shoulder perspective. The twist, of course, comes in that many ghosts can’t be dealt with by simple blasting but need to be slung into a trap. After weakening your prey by concentrating your proton stream on them for a short time, the ghost can then be ‘wrangled’. Throwing out that familiar lasso of crackling orange and blue, you then yank on the ghost with the analogue sticks until he is over the trap before pulling the struggling spirit into that bright, deadly cone of light. It’s an incredibly satisfying feeling as that trap slams shut with the last ghost inside, particularly after some lengthy battles with an army of ghouls. The music stops and you survey the destruction as black, flaming fissures spider up the walls and furniture lies in scattered splinters across the floor. Busting makes you feel good, all right.

There was the danger that this rhythmic weaken-wrangle- trap formula could descend into tedious repetition. But Terminal Reality were, thankfully, wise to this from the outset, admirably mixing up the pace and rhythm of the game to avoid players becoming bored within the first few hours. There are sections where you use the PKE meter to track down ghosts (you can also expose enemy weaknesses by scanning ghosts in battle, or hunt out collectables), you’ll escort Ecto-1 through a crumbling Manhattan and fight the Stay Puft Marshmallow man hanging upside down on the side of the building, all within the first half of the game. Things are further mixed up with the gradual introduction of add-ons for your trusty proton pack. A dark matter device doubles as a stasis beam and shotgun. The slime blower disperses a great wave of green gloop and can fire out slime tethers, allowing you to have a little fun with Ghostbusters impressive physics engine. And finally, there's the Mezon collider, which is essentially a laser-powered machine gun.

Given this level of inventiveness, it's a shame that Ghostbusters doesn't quite keep up its momentum, losing its zest somewhat in the latter stages. Some of the initially minor niggles become more prevalent, the game falling into some of the genre's most obvious pitfalls. Despite being the rookie, you're often expected to lead from the front. The game or your fellow ghostbusters giving you few clues as to where to go next, leading to you wandering the level while your team-mates stand around, literally scratching their backsides. The game's approach to death can often irritate too. For around 90 per cent of the game you will be teamed with one or more of the other ghostbusters and the game only ends when every member of your team falls. You can revive your team-mates by simply running up to them and tapping a button and, likewise, they can revive you. However, you'll find that they get into trouble far more often than you do, on occasion leading to you legging it around the level trying to keep everyone alive. As one of the trophies for the game puts it "I'm a Ghostbuster, not a doctor." The closing stages bring a lot of these faults into sharp light, with needless difficulty spikes and a disappointing descent into cliched third-person-shooter territory, with too much mindless blasting, funnelled down dark corridors.

So, does this suggest an above-average shooter trussed up to the nines in a terrific licence? Well, yes and no. Terminal Reality bring an impressive level of imagination to the core gameplay that, with a touch more polish, would have stood as a good game in its own right. But there's no doubting that the licence is what raises Ghostbusters a plane above. Tempting as it may be for some, it would be churlish to criticise the game too much for this, as every aspect is finely, and deliberately, tuned to be an engaging Ghostbusters experience. It's in the details, like the extensive and well-written Tobin's Spirit Guide which details each spook that you scan, the rattle of the proton packs and the brilliantly captured mannerisms of each character. And it's in the broader strokes. The dialogue is crisp, well-written and laugh out loud funny and, for the most part, the voice acting is excellent. Bill Murray may not deliver Peter Venkman's lines with the pep his younger self may have, but that dry, withering tone is still there. Ernie Hudson as Winston and William Atherton as the returning pencil-neck, Walter Peck, are outstanding. While Aykroyd is perhaps the star, sounding like he's having the time of his life as Ray. It is, for all intents and purposes, the closest most of us can get to actually being a ghostbuster.

And, ultimately, that's exactly what this game is all about. Bar a few flaws and annoyances along the way, it's geeky, funny, genuinely spooky in places, packed with blistering, ghost-catching action and beautifully captures a unique charm and atmosphere that has bewitched audiences for 25 years. Simply put, it's The Ghostbusters.